🗞 How To Make Your UX Research Hard To Ignore

✍️ On My Mind This Week

Trust Happens at the Risk Line
Most researchers treat stakeholder relationships like a service contract: deliver the insight, stay neutral, avoid discomfort. That’s precisely why they lose influence before the roadmap closes.

Real credibility comes from emotional proximity - the willingness to step into the charged space where decisions carry personal cost. When a PM is weighing a feature cut that will anger their VP, or a designer is defending a paradigm shift that could fail spectacularly, being the researcher who says “I don’t know, but here’s what we could learn” is worthless. Being the one who says “Here’s what I’d bet on, and here’s why” changes the dynamic entirely.

I watched a researcher earn a standing invite to exec reviews not by running more studies, but by making himself uncomfortable first. He told the product lead, bluntly, that the roadmap was solving the wrong problem - then offered to be wrong publicly if the data said so. The PM took the bet. The data confirmed it. Trust compounded from there.

Three moves that work:

• Make the first disclosure. Share your uncertainty about a research plan before anyone asks. It signals you’re not optimizing for looking right.
• Pose the question they’re avoiding. If everyone’s dancing around technical feasibility, name it. You earn authority by going toward discomfort.
• Show up early. Join the roadmap conversation when it’s still whiteboard scribbles, not show & tell.

You can’t control outcomes. You can control whether you’re the one willing to step closer to the edge.

Happy Researching, 
Jan 🙌

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📚 Articles of the Week

Standardizing AI usage in UX Research
UX research teams need a repeatable framework to safely integrate AI now. Checklist: Map workflows, Audit subtasks, Scan risks, Trial tools, Embed AI for intake/planning (notes, study drafts), Repeat reviews; keep humans leading analysis and verification. Ki Aguero

Using AI for UX Work: Study Guide
AI should be your productivity sidekick, not a replacement for judgment. Use small experiments: craft CARE prompts, validate AI outputs with real users, and treat AI like a supervised intern. Tanner Kohler

Can AI Understand Feelings? - The Future of User Research
AI accelerates UX research by automating synthesis, prediction, and sentiment at scale. Checklist: delegate analysis to AI, validate patterns with real users, and let empathy steer decisions. Suresh John Senegarapu

Why Most AI Products Fail (and How to Break the Cycle)
AI products fail from strategic misalignment — fix market, solution, and incentive gaps, not models. Checklist: define problem, validate need with an MVP, pick the simplest solution, align KPIs, and measure user impact over accuracy. Alireza Azarparand

How to accelerate 0→1 research with AI
AI is a force multiplier for 0→1 UX research, turning unfamiliar domains into prioritized, testable opportunities within weeks. Checklist: gather annotated bibliography; transcribe interviews; extract JTBDs; affinitize outcomes; incrementally build Copilot analysis. Mike Brzozowski

How To Make Your UX Research Hard To Ignore
Facts don't win arguments; compelling stories do. Triangulate qual + quant, include customer clips, align on shared goals, and offer clear, doable solutions. Vitaly Friedman

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🎥 Video of the Week

A Framework for Seamless Collaboration Between UX Researchers and Product Analysts
A framework for seamless collaboration between UX Researchers and Product Analysts to integrate qualitative and quantitative insights, enhance communication, improve product outcomes, and equip attendees with practical strategies to build data-driven, user-centric products in an AI-driven future. Subhasree Chatterjee & Archana J. Shah

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🔉 Audio of the Week

Qualitative Research's Enduring Impact with Nancy Baum
Qualitative research remains indispensable for revealing human motivations despite AI and big-data trends. Recruit purposively, combine qualitative with quantitative streams, and tell clear stakeholder-focused stories. Nancy Baum

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🗓 UserCalendar.com: Upcoming Events.

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October 28 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm EDT
Experts discuss practical strategies for sustainable research knowledge management, covering repository realities, AI’s role, evolving tool stacks, and driving long-term value and outcomes in organizations. Learn more

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